


A Bitter Heart To Bloom So Bright

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [137]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, F/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Manipulation, Nightmares, Past Mind Control, Recovery, Similarities between past and present relationships, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 05:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: He, with all the harm he has done, bows to her hands. She, with all the harm she has done, takes his hands in hers.Trust, with a price beyond counting.





	A Bitter Heart To Bloom So Bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nanyoky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanyoky/gifts).



> So I bounced this idea at [Nanyoky](/) a while back and then... wroted it all. I listened to [_1:42_ by Danger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBon00jon10), [_Fading Light_ by Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f52mI1YHp-k) and [_Titanium ft. Sia_ by David Guetta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg) on a loop while writing this, which may or may not have put me into a weird headspace, so if something reads weirdly it's probably that combined with my tendency to go gothic. 
> 
> Many thanks to [SecondStarOnTheLeft](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft) for looking over it for me!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy it!

 

_ First, do no harm, _ that is the Doctor’s oath. Wanda has done much harm in her short life and, after all her failed attempts to do good, Wanda does not doubt she will do much more.   

This, this that they ask of her now may do a great deal of harm, far more than they know, just as easily as it may do good. Her scarlet falters at her fingertips, unsteady and uncertain in this freedom-not-freedom, still stop-starting since the Raft and an imprisonment that felt far too like the shell.

The mind before her is fragmented and uncertain, old memories only linked together and rising to the fore by virtue of chance. Seeded in amongst them are festering words and lost pieces, the puzzle that will turn this man back into the Asset, the Winter Soldier, and strip away the Bucky Barnes he is.

Scarlet curls around her fingertips.

“This will hurt,” she warns, and rips the trigger words out of his head.

 

* * *

 

He wanders the halls at night. He can’t sleep. Or: he can, but then the nightmares come, rising out of the dark parts of his mind. He can, but then the dreams come, lost memories and found ones and things so unreal he hopes they are imagined and yet knows in his heart of hearts that they are real.

Many nights he wakes, clutching his new-made metal shoulder.

So instead of sleeping he walks, or he sleeps and wakes and walks, and when doing so he always finds her.

A spot of scarlet and soot in amongst shining steel and stone.

“Barnes,” she says softly, nodding. “Is your mind troubling you?”

Each night he looks at her. Watches. Wary memories of what others did to his head rise.

And he bows his head to her scarlet hands so he might have some semblance of peace.

 

* * *

 

His mind is a bare shell, slowly rebuilding itself. Around the edges the whitewash of the mindwipes is flaking off, revealing lost things on one side, the emotional imprint buried in the crooks and crannies of the flaked off paint.

The trigger words may be gone from Bucky Barnes’ mind, but other triggers are not and single miss-said words can send flurries of trauma and upset and joy through his head, a mingling of long lost and new confused emotions.

When he is like this only the doctor’s tranquilisers or Wanda’s scarlet fingers can soothe it.

 

* * *

 

There is a wrong-rightness to the peace he seeks and finds in the witch’s hands. It is wrong because his mind is his and must be his, can only be his after all people have done to try to take it from him. It is wrong because his mind was remade wrong, because it never healed right, because it is a mismade and broken thing.

It is right because the peace he finds there is the only peace he can find, and he does not know how else to find it. And after all, is it not his mind? Can he not choose who he lets touch it, now?

He bows his head to her scarlet hands, accepts the offered peace, and does not dare ask more.

 

* * *

 

The peace is uneasy and yet easy, simple and yet complex. There are layers to this, this trust that Bucky Barnes offers her, he who has so little reason to trust. He offers her his mind, puts his head into her hands, and trusts she will do him no harm.

She. She who has done so much harm, that which she meant and did not both.

But… Bucky Barnes has done the same, harm intended and not done with his own two hands, and he knows the burden of the trust that is offered to him in turn. Trust offered to them that they are each unworthy of.

She strokes gentle fingers through his hair, strokes scarlet fingers through his mind, and soothes his thoughts to rest.

 

* * *

 

Peace comes easier when he knows she is near. When he knows that, should memories rise and emotions surge, her scarlet is there to put him down, to make his mind sink into rest and sense until he can wake and rise in certainty of himself once more. Her scarlet is gentle as darts and tasers never were, are soft and soothing as the chair never was, bring him a peace far more calming than the purpose he had as the Soldier.

She does not seem to mind his presence, accepts him waiting by her side when talking to others, does not seem to notice or care for Steve’s worried frown, or Clint’s, or Sam’s, just winds scarlet softly around his fingers when he grows restless, when the depths of his mind churn and swirl and try to send up some new, forgotten nightmare. She does not mind him sitting near her when she reads, does not mind him in the main room when she wakes from nightmares, waiting.

He bows his head to her hands, lets her fingers comb through his hair and her scarlet through his mind, and lets himself be eased to sleep.

It is restful, to not have to worry, to know there is someone who will set his mind to rights and will not hurt him.

 

* * *

 

She sits and combs her fingers through his hair. He is sleeping, half-sprawled across a sofa, head on the arm nearest her small chair, and it is easy to reach out a single hand as she reads, keeping fingers ready should nightmares rise. 

His dreams are soft-flitting things, flickers of memories and nightmare and dream interwoven as a tapestry, linking together this piece and that part, making sense of nonsense until he can rest a little easier, his mind a little more ordered. 

Wanda watches because she is sleepless, because there is no one to set her mind to rights as she can set his. 

There is no Pietro anymore, who knew her mind like his own, who could set her worries to peace in a moment. 

There is just herself, and whatever trust and strength she can find.

 

* * *

 

He is strong enough to stand on his own, of course he is. He always has been. After the Helicarriers fell he made his own way, found his own path, relearned his mind, piece by fragmented piece. He is strong enough to stand on his own, but here, now, he does not want to; here, now, he does not have to.

Here, now, he can let go, give over strength to someone else, let someone else choose, safe in the knowledge they will not hurt him. Steve would worry, he does not know the others enough, but Wanda…

Wanda can see the dark parts of his mind, and Wanda watches them, unflinching. Wanda, the witch, has dark parts to her own mind, nightmares and guilt and hatred, churning and coiling, begging to be let free. Wanda knows what it is to live in fear of yourself, of how soon you might be made a weapon again, of how soon you might once more do harm.

Wanda understands these things, and so she will not ever hurt him. She knows the value of the trust he places in her.

 

* * *

 

Trust beyond value, trust beyond words. There is no way of measuring this that he offers her, offers her freely, of his own choice and will. He offers this trust because he choses to, because he can, just as Pietro ever did. He is not afraid of her, is unafraid because he trusts her, but this is not the trust Pietro had, the trust and the bone deep certainty that he  _ must not _ fear her, this is trust because he can, because he is free to offer that trust, because he knows she understands and can see what others cannot, and knows in seeing these things she will not use them against him. Because he has been through things as bad as she could wreak, and survived.

He, with all the harm he has done, bows to her hands. She, with all the harm she has done, takes his hands in hers.

Trust, with a price beyond counting.

 

* * *

 

Wanda’s hand strokes his face and he leans into it. She strokes his hair, sometimes, when she sets his mind to rest, strokes her thumbs over his hands when she takes his hands in hers, fingers ever and always gentle and soft on his skin. Gentle and soft and so careful to never do harm. Her scarlet barely touches his mind now, does not need to; unless his nightmares rise her very presence is an antidote to every seeping horror of his mind.

The others look on with worry sometimes, look on with uncertainty. They are glad he is up and about, glad he is not so riddled with nightmares, glad he does not stop and seize each day, spittle dribbling out onto the coffee area floor. Glad he does not go still, so painfully still, every muscle straining as he goes against instinctual memory and does not draw his knives.

But something of his peace worries them, and he does not think he fully grasps why.

 

* * *

 

They worry about them. Worry that Wanda leans too heavily on Bucky when it is Bucky who leans on her, into her, offering her trust from harm as she offers safety from nightmares. Worry that Bucky strains her too much when his trust in her is the backbone of the strength she has rebuilt for herself. Worry that they are unevenly matched, the near-century old soldier, the twenty year old girl, serum powers and sceptre powers, the one who’s mind’s been fucked with, the one capable of fucking with minds.

“I will not hurt him,” she says. “I would not hurt him any sooner than I would have ever hurt my brother.”

Something in their faces says  _ How do you know that this does not hurt you both. _

She does not know. She trusts in Bucky’s trust in her.

 

* * *

 

“You trust me,” Bucky says. It is not a question. “That I won’t hurt you.”

“You trust me,” she says. “Even though I could so easily hurt you.”

This is the fine line they tread, between harming and not harming, between fear and hatred, and Bucky lets out his tension and relaxes. 

“You won’t hurt me,” he says. “You know what it would mean if you did.”

Wanda nods. “It would mean,” she says. “That I am even worse than those who hurt you in the first place.”

 

* * *

 

She will not be as bad as Nazis. She has been bad, been awful, been horrible. She has torn apart minds, and torn apart bodies and torn apart people and groups and yet… there is a limit. There is a line.

Intended or not, she will not be as bad as those who would have killed her parents as readily as Stark’s bombs.

 

* * *

 

His peace grows, his strength and his certainty with it. He has less cause to fear himself as he becomes more grounded in the trust Wanda gives him, the trust he gives her.

It makes the nightmares all the worse when they come.

 

* * *

 

It is not he who wakes her from her sleep, but the sense of his approaching mind. A mind in storm, in turmoil, in flux, nightmare flurries swirling with flakes of snow, with pieces of memory. She rises in her bed as he reaches her doorway, reaches her hand towards him as he steps through.

Her scarlet combs through his hair as he bows his head to her hands.

“Please,” he whispers.

 

* * *

 

He wakes curled beside her, his head on her stomach. Her fingers - or maybe her scarlet, he cannot see - strokes gently through his hair while she reads something on a tablet.

“Did you sleep?” he asks.

“Not since you came,” she replies, fingers or scarlet still gentle in his hair. “It was nice,” she says. “To see you sleep peacefully.”

He sighs, rolls his shoulders from the curl they’d been in, rises up from his place atop her covers. Her hand gently drops to the mattress, no scarlet trailing from her fingers. “Thank you,” he says. Then, “Sorry.”

She sets down the tablet, looks at him with eyes that are piercing even as they hold no scarlet. “Bucky,” she says. “You do not have to apologise for nightmares.”

 

* * *

 

She leaves her door slightly ajar after that. She wonders if he notices the slight invitation, the ever-present offer when he shuffles from his room to hers, his mind still swirling with forgotten fragments newly remembered. Maybe he does, maybe he does not, for he shuffles in without a word, bows his head to her hands and curls up beside her. Wanda does not need to sleep when he does this, wakes from restless sleep in a moment and finds the peace she seeks for her own mind in the peace she makes in his.

She reads, she watches, she makes peace from a hurricane of nightmares. Beside her, curled atop the covers, Bucky sleeps.

 

* * *

 

He goes to her room often, more often than he should. Sometimes he thinks he dwells too long, dwells too much on each new nightmare, each new-remembered thing, lets it bring up memories into a storm of nightmares, his mind almost splitting apart at the seams with remembered things he would wish forgotten, wish undone. He does not know if Wanda sees this, in his mind, if she minds, if she cares, for she judges him not at all. He bows his head to her hands, entrusts his mind to her scarlet, and he sleeps.

He is so very startled when she comes to his room.

He wakes as the door opens, sets down the knife as she enters, holds out his metal hand to her as she whispers, “Bucky.”

In the dim light from the windows he can see the lines of tears on her cheeks.

“Wanda,” he says softly as she curls up against him. “Witch.”

“Nightmare,” she whispers. “Pietro.”

He lets out a breath, relaxes. Strokes metal fingertips through her hair. Trusts in her trust in him. “He is gone,” he says, gentle, so gentle. “But you are safe. I will protect you if I can. I will see you safe.”

She looks at him sadly, eyes still wet. “But who will then protect you?”

 

* * *

 

She does not sleep. He strokes her hair to smoothness, holds her until she stops shaking. When he sees she will not sleep he presses his cheek to her hair, weaves his fingers with hers. 

“I’m going to sleep,” he says. “See if I can.”

She leans into his shoulder, into his cheek against her hair, and smiles. “Okay,” she says. Then. “Thank you.”

His breath is soft, his lips gentle against her hair as he speaks. “You do not have to be grateful to me.”

 

* * *

 

When he wakes he’s curled against her side, her fingers gentle in his hair. She’s not reading this time, his tablet is untouched on the low table by his bed. Instead, she watches the sunrise, dawning over the rainforest outside.

His hand rises, takes her hand from his hair and interlinks their fingers. 

“You’re ok?” he asks. 

The smile she gives him is as gently but certainly warm as the sunrise over the steaming rainforest. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”

 

* * *

 

His mind is coming back together, being remade into some semblance of wholeness. Some part of Wanda fears that he will leave her alone, wants her to dig in scarlet fingers where he cannot see, to make it impossible. Another part of her knows there is no need, that he has grown so used to her presence that even a perfectly healed mind will not part them. Another part of her mind knows it would be wrong to trap him so, to take away that choice.

They have become close because of and in spite of their troubles. Healing will not part them now.

 

* * *

 

“Your brother-” Bucky asks. His voice is gentle, he knows how important this is to her. 

“I failed him,” she whispers. “I couldn’t protect him.”

He considers. Looks at her curled in on herself, apart from one hand trailing soft scarlet by the side of his face, waiting for him. “From what everyone says, seems like he protected you.”

The laugh Wanda gives is half a sob. “Yes.”

He looks up at her from his seat on the floor, looks at the tears beaded on her lashes, her hair half covering her face, her scarlet grown more sure and more certain with his ready acceptance of it. “If you want,” he says. “I will protect you.”

Her hand rises from where it’s tucked against her side, wipes away the beaded tears. She looks at him, looks through him, looks into his head. “Then I will protect you,” she says.

 

* * *

 

It takes a while for her to become at ease enough to fall asleep beside him. He wakes from nightmares when alone, but after a while her mere presence is enough to calm him from even their prospect. He sleeps beside her, curled atop her covers, head on her stomach while she reads, and she combs her fingers through his hair without a touch of scarlet.

His mind is peaceful, soothed to it’s own sense, it’s own knowledge that, should he need it, she will tame him, will put him down.

She falls asleep beside him, curls her face into his shoulder, her fingertips on his wrist and in his hair, burrowing as close as she can to his warmth with the blankets between them. 

When he wakes his first word is a muzzy, “Wanda?”

“Mm?” she hums. 

“You were sleeping.” It isn’t a question, just a statement of fact, but Wanda can hear the question in it, the half-wondering amazement that she would trust him enough to fall asleep in his presence.

“You were peaceful,” she says. “There was no sign of nightmares.”

He watches her, wide watching eyes uncertain. Her fingers tangle in his hair.

“If you were a threat,” she promises, “I could make myself safe.”

He breathes a sigh out, and closes his eyes again.

 

* * *

 

She falls asleep beside him more and more. There is an odd comfort to it, the same odd comfort of her scarlet. The knowledge that she knows how to make herself safe from him, the knowledge that he has survived worse than she would ever do to him. The fact they could so easily hurt each other and that, each day, they chose not to, that instead they chose to trust. 

Some days, when she did not fall asleep beside him the night before, she falls asleep against him in the common area, head tilting onto his shoulder, scarlet fading in her lax hands. There is something so calmly absolute in it, the level of trust she offers. 

_ You could hurt me, _ it says.  _ You could, and you won’t. _

He does not always trust himself, even now, even with the triggers torn from his head, her scarlet soothing his mind, his memories returning each day in piecemeal, with the seizures lessened to almost nothing. He does not always trust himself, but he trusts her.

He trusts in her trust in him.

 

* * *

 

Some nights, now she will fall asleep beside him, he wakes from nightmares. Sometimes he wakes her, sometimes she sees the memory of it from him in the morning. Sometimes she wakes to his fingers lightly tangled in her hair, his stomach beneath her ear, him watching her face half in wonder.

She sees it, skittering across the surface of his mind,  _ I am not worthy. I have not earned this. I could still hurt her. What if I do hurt- _

And she spreads gentle scarlet out, and offers to quiet the demons of his dreams.

Sometimes he accepts. Sometimes he kisses her fingertips, and refuses.

 

* * *

 

He wakes to hear Wanda screaming.

His first thought: dread.

His first thought:  _ I did this. _

His next thought:  _ Wanda. _

Her eyes are wide and unseeing, her hands flailing loose scarlet around, but he sees her unharmed, and some part of himself lets go of guilt and grief. 

His metal hand does not shake, not as his flesh hand does, so he reaches with that, sees her eyes focus as the cold metal touches skin.

“Bucky,” she gasps. 

“You’re safe,” he promises.

She reaches for him, grasps his arms like a lifeline. She seeks safety and security in him, shows him he is safe to her. Her face presses to the join of his neck and shoulder, her hair against his nose. “What do you need?” he asks.

She lets out a quavering breath, her lips soft against his skin as she says, “This. Please. You.”

They fall asleep tucked under covers together, Wanda’s fingers in his hair, and his fingers in hers.

 

* * *

 

Her fingers catch on his as they part ways the next morning. She does not entirely want him to go.

 

* * *

 

Steve looks at him like he’s made of spun glass, like he’ll break again at any moment, as though the wrong touch might shatter him. T’Challa looks at him with consideration, some trial of acceptance, some testing knowledge and curiosity, but nothing more. Clint looks at him and then at Wanda, wondering and wary, Sam looks at him as though he knows that, at any moment, he could snap and hurt them all.

Wanda looks at him, looks through him, looks into his head, and takes his hand in hers, unafraid.

 

* * *

 

“I have seen minds of all kinds,” she whispers to him that night as they curl into each other’s warmth, the comforting presence of each other’s simple trust. “I have seen strong minds and weak ones, and  _ this,” _ her scarlet dances for a moment, sketches out for him precisely how she sees his mind, a vast pale shell, a shining aurora of re-found memories, a vast lake of lost memories like snow beneath. “This shell of a mind is stronger than many I have seen. I have seen shells of minds, and standing pillars, and forms of strength born of brokenness.” Her hand withdraws, tucks beneath the covers, her thumb runs softly over the skin of the back of his hand. “You will not break,” she whispers. “You are too strong for that.”

 

* * *

 

He does not know which of them started it, after. Who’s lips first touched who’s. He remembers Wanda’s lips against his neck, as they always are when they go to sleep, soft breaths and soft movements, the brush of her eyelashes beneath his ear. Remembers each of their hands in the other’s hair, a light tangle of trust and comfort.

Remembers, later, lips moving over lips, both of them gentle, both of them asking with every touch. Wanda’s fingers tangle with his, no trace of scarlet at the tips, an absolute trust that he will not hurt her even when she is at her most vulnerable. He has not hurt her when they have slept, has not hurt her when they wake.

Her lips are gentle on his, his lips tender against hers at the gentle insistence that he will not hurt her now.

 

* * *

 

Trust is hidden in each touch, trust and a question,  _ will you allow me this? _

Of course she will. She trusts him. Knows he will not hurt her. Will not hurt himself. Knows he is strong enough to chose for himself, that he has built himself stronger with the backbone of knowledge that she will keep him from harming anyone around them. 

She has a backbone of knowledge too: if he, with all he has gone through, can trust her, she may just be worthy of trust after all.

 

* * *

 

Later, in the morning, he remembers it in flashes. Remembers Wanda’s fingertips against his cheek, eyes clear and certain watching his, lips sweet and gentle against his.

Remembers both of them pushing clothes aside, and covers, making space for them to press closer and closer, skin to skin, lips and hands going where they had not considered before.

Remembers kneeling between Wanda’s legs, watching her lain back on the pillows like a queen, and beckoning him closer.

He wakes in the morning, and feels peace.

 

* * *

 

Their fingers tangle, their minds intertwine. Wanda can see it, his mind of snow and shimmering midnight memories, how it welcomes the scarlet threading through it, how the light of the aurora of his rediscovered past illuminates her mind, shows the growing cracks of the cathedral facade. Beneath, the synagogue is breaking free.

He is learning to see her scarlet in his mind, learn how to use it to go into hers or send soft thoughts, gentle ideas, to soothe her when she is restless. There is something familiar to this, his support of her so she is strong enough, so he can let himself be strong. He knows he could still do harm, still fears it, still trusts her scarlet to put him down if needs be. He offers support not so he can build his strength from hers, but so he can build in her shadow, a house in the shadow of a mountain that may be but moments from crashing down.

He shores up the mountain so it does not fall without cause, knowing that, one day, he may be the cause. Wanda makes her mind the mountain, makes it the cavern within, and keeps her scarlet ever-ready so as to soothe his worried nerves.

“You will not hurt me,” she promises. “You will not hurt them.”

He looks at her, more confident, more certain that he will refrain from harm and nightmares, from seizures and stuttering, and yet still uncertain. Her thumb strokes a gentle line along his lips. 

“I promise.”

 

* * *

 

He lets her rise above him, lays back in the bed they share so often it is theirs together rather than either alone. His arms spread to the edges, fingertips on the sheets, metal and flesh both. Wanda rises above him, the mountain unassailable, fingertips gentle and soft against his cheek. 

There is a difference here: when, before, he kneeled between her legs, she offered him that for she knew her own strength.

Here, now, he offers her this because he fears his own.

Her lips are sweet and tender on his.

 

* * *

 

Bucky quivers beneath her, wanting to touch and refusing to all at once. He does not fear her, that is not why he holds himself back, he does not fear this, that is not why he holds himself back either. He chases each of her kisses, but never lets his back leave the mattress, stretching his neck as far as he dares before he falls back down, watching up at her with some kind of mingled respect and pleading and worship.

He fears his own strength, what he might do untamed, just as much as she once did.

She does not fear anymore, knows she is almost unlimited in what she could do, knows just how much she will refrain for those who ask it of her. 

Wanda straddles him, swallows his groan with a kiss, and reaches out to take both his hands in hers.

 

* * *

 

He wakes curled around her. One of her legs stretches out over his, the fingers of their hands are still interlinked. Her face is half turned towards his, her eyes softly shut, expression peaceful. He untangles his fingers from hers with care, strokes metal fingertips gently through her hair, smiles with gentle fondness as she turns into the caress, eyes slowly opening.

There is a flicker of scarlet at the tips of her fingers for a moment, the sight alone soothing away niggling fears, reminding him that she will not let him do harm, that she can and will keep herself safe, keep him safe from himself.

When she wakes beside him there is never a moment of fear. When she spots him there is never an instant of wariness, a single second where the risks and rewards are weighed. There is no moment of pity, or sadness, no assessment, just quiet watching, observing him and waiting.

He dips his head to kiss the fingers lifting to his cheek. He whispers to the skin of her palm, “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

_ This isn’t healthy. _

She knows this, can see this, understand this.

Dares not end it.

They have each built strength and sanity on this. For him: someone who trusts he will not hurt her, someone who will stop him if need be, who can halt his thoughts and turn them back into  _ him _ , put down the Winter Soldier without hesitation and without death. 

For her: someone who trusts her never to do more than she has promised. Someone who offers trust to her like water, and she drinks it down like she is dying and desperate, this water-trust the thing that can save her.

She needs this as much as he does… but she has seen the problems with this. She knows, now, that if they lose each other it would be Pietro’s loss all over again, but with no survivors.

They cannot die. Not with each new threat the world is facing. Not with HYDRA and Infinity Stones, not with aliens and group after group making more and more weapons of worse and worse kinds. They are needed.

They are needed. They cannot die. If they continue like this, they are both lost.

Solution: they must stop this. Part ways, find their own strength on their own.

Wanda looks at Bucky’s sleeping face, tucks closer to his side, and cannot make herself.

 

* * *

 

He leans into her presence. Even if she is not there he has some sense of where she is in relation to him, turns towards her when she enters the room, leans into her touch, knows that if he falls she will catch him, that he won’t fall because he knows she is there to stop him.

There is a loss in this trust, something vanishing that he has fought so hard for. It is like a telescope getting narrower, focussing in and in instead of searching for more.

He cannot make himself regret it.

Before, he feared. He saw the world around him and did not understand, did not remember.

Then he did remember, and it was awful.

Now he knows, knows the past, and knows pain, knows his guilt and responsibility, knows he has turned on friends even when he had but found them again.

He dares not. Must not. Wanda’s hands, offered scarlet to soothe away nightmares, that tore away traitorous trigger words, have offered a safety into which he willingly fell.

This is not HYDRA or the Red Room, this is not him dragged screaming to the chair, near wetting himself with terror, spit flying from his mouth as he fights desperately to remember, to not forget, to be himself, himself, himself-  _ Bucky Barnes _ .

This is freedom. This is safety. 

Reaching out and knowing there are hands to catch you if you fall.

Wanda’s hands are the steadiest he’s yet known.

 

* * *

 

His mind worries her more and more. A wintry scape and then peeling paint and now something new, a narrowing focus, a lens looking ever closer and missing out on all but the single object of its observation.

She remembers another mind: a tree, a lake, a wellspring of life and love and energy.

Remembers being it’s glowing polestar.

Pietro and she had moulded themselves such through long action, long choice, had made themselves without fully knowing what they gave up. Pietro sacrificed freedom, sacrificed choice, gave everything in her service, sacrificing to her altar so he could protect her, a knight errant ever at her side, ever ready to help or harm in her name. She had sacrificed in turn, to the altar of their twinship and their vengeance, fought for both that they may take their payment in blood together, at each other’s sides, twins forever, together unsundered.

They had made that choice. Had chosen to abide by that, knowing and unknowing at once of what they did.

She had minds, however, minds in the palms of her hands, pulled forward and visible at the whim of her scarlet. She could see how it changed things. Her mind a church, a temple, a cathedral, a synagogue, a place of worship to their goals and their bond alone. His mind… his mind was Eden, perhaps, but an Eden sinned against, polluted, corrupted by false worship. An Eden where there was no G-d to look to, no heavens and no angels.

Only her.

She looks at Bucky Barnes’ mind, his narrowing gaze, his pinhole focus and she fears.

 

* * *

 

Wanda is not as present. She stays in their bed, sleeps and nuzzles, offers soft touches and soft words and soft smiles.

But there is something off, some stretching space. He does not mind it, will not begrudge her it. She is still there for him, he is still there for her. That she feels well enough to walk alone, to take more time for herself is good, shows improvement - and if she improves, if she heals utterly from her fears, from her doubts, from her sense of guilt and responsibility… then, then maybe he will find his way to the light.

 

* * *

 

She could help. She could not. She needs the bond they share as much as he does but it hurts them, burns them, shapes them wrong all anew. There is a safety in the familiar, for him to sink back into a less painful version of the harm he knew, for her to sink back into the dynamic of leader and guide, the witch of the streets, with knowledge unending, to sink back into the shape of half of a whole, a guide reaching out her hand to the one who would be her guard.

There is a safety in it, a security, the comfort of the familiar.

The familiar will not help them now. The familiar will only make it worse when it is gone.

Wanda looks over Bucky, his head light on her stomach, his fingertips on her hips, his hair trailing over her side, onto the sheet between them. Her fingers comb through the strands, her hands find the shape of his skull.

To do this, she knows, would be the greatest sin. Would kill him, if he ever found out. Would hurt more than every mind wipe put together, would hurt more than sacrificing vengeance, more than whatever Stark had felt when he learned that Steve had kept from him a secret.

Bucky trusts her. That she will not hurt him, that she will only help. That she will only touch his mind as he asks.

Bucky trusts her, because she has not hurt him, has only helped. Because she has only touched his mind as he has asked.

He leans on her though. More than just a support, a crutch or cane to offer support during healing - she has become a scaffold around him, she has let him be strings of strength for her, steel suspension cables holding her from falling.

With scarlet in her hands, she can fly. When Pietro was at her side, she had been unfearing. She must learn to be these things again.

Wanda looks at Bucky’s mind, it’s needle-sharp focus, precise and glittering like an icicle, a blade, a shattered edge of glass. Wanda looks down the scope, down the lens, at the slide in the eye of the microscope, at how he sees her, focussed in on her almost entirely alone, almost ignorant of the cell structure that supports the lone cell.

Wanda considers. Wanda does not want to lie and fail and betray again.

Wanda does not want to be tied to another unto death again. Does not want a bond that spells death for both should one be lost. Does not want Bucky dead for her failings, could not bear another Pietro.

_ This is selfish, _ some part of her says.  _ What of him? His choice? _

Wanda knows, as she had known herself, had known Pietro - now, trapped as he has made himself, he would never chose different.

Wanda looks at his mind, made and remade and torn and turned. Betrayed and burned to ashes, rebuilt through stubbornness and certainty, looks at a mind still bearing scars, still carrying memories of what happened the last time his mind was remade against his choosing.

She strokes soft fingers over his brow, presses her lips to his skin, and sinks her scarlet into his mind.

_ First do no harm _ , those are the doctors words, and she is careful where she treads, knowing the harm she has caused already.  _ First do no harm _ , but she has failed that even when she tried to help.

_ Be free, _ she whispers into his mind, and widens the pinhole, scales out the slide, lets a larger picture be seen.  _ Be free, _ she thinks, but does not break the bond they’ve built. 

_ Please, _ she whispers.  _ Forgive me. _

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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